We are the last generation that learned to play in the street, the first to play video games and the last to record songs off the radio. We are the last generation to have watched TV in black and white, the first to have owned plasma screens and the first to be watching TV in 3D. We are the generation born in the late 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. We are the generation whose parents grew up hearing the promise of an “Egg for breakfast for every Zambian”.
Today, we are the generation waiting to see “more money” in our pockets; For we are the generation that grew up long after the fruits of independence had been shared and the rest given out to the interests of International private capital.
We, who were the last generation to have received free education, now crowd Cairo road with degrees and doctorates: watching those we once only saw in ‘Bruce Lee’ movies running the mines and exporting both our copper and our jobs to unknown lands.
We the generation that grew up with the constant encouragement that there was a light at the end of the tunnel, have lived long enough to realise that what often seems to be a ‘light at the end of the tunnel’, is nothing more than the beginning of another tunnel.
We are the generation that saw the long tunnel of one party participatory democracy give way to the light of ‘multi party democracy and economic liberalisation.’ Twenty years later, we are the generation that has lived long enough to realise that the light our parents saw at the end of the long tunnel of one party rule, was nothing but the beginning of ‘A twenty year long tunnel of corruption and moral decay’ that has left our generation the most AIDS infected and affected generation in the not so long history of our country.
We have become generation X. X for extinction, X for sexual perversion, X for economically excluded. Our 20 year long tunnel did not just liberalise the economy, it also liberalised morality and drove integrity to the brink of xtinction.
We the post independence era youths of Zambia have seen the fading dreams of independence and the utopian promises of the third republic. We have lived long enough to see that there is no light at the End of the tunnel, but rather another long tunnel at the end of every political promise.
We who have never enjoyed the fruits of independence are no longer asking for government handouts but demanding to give ourselves the future we deserve. We are demanding the right to give to ourselves decent work and opportunities to benefit from our God given mineral resources.
‘The Egg’ our parents were promised has never been delivered. We their offspring demand not one but all the ‘Eggs’…bequeathed to us by virtue of our being Zambian. We are demanding the fruits of our independence. We are the generation that will not be lied to.
The third force internet generation, the generation that you have taught to eat your bribes without responding to your demands, to attend your rallies but vote for your worst enemy, to praise you and tell you all is well even when you are breathing your last, politically.
We are the generation that has learned to say “donchi kubeba.” we bear no malice nor resentment for the plight
we endure, only a desire to see the realisation of our long postponed dream of Economic independence.
THE ZAMBIA WE DESERVE
We the post independence generation have seen hope, have received promise but today make our appeal; To our Church leaders, politicians in government and the opposition alike “allow us to give ourselves the Zambia we deserve.”
1.Give us ‘a sit at the table’ the right to participate in the daily governance of our country. The right to speak and be heard at the policy making table.
2.Give us a new constitution that will stand the test of time
3.Begin to fight resource colonialism and defend the legacy of independence. Allow us too to benefit from the fruits of self government.
4.Create decent working conditions for all Zambians-especially those employed in the mines
5.Stop the cancer of tribalism and ethnic nationalism for we know no other Zambia, other than the one in which every race tribe and tongue lives in unity under the enduring banner of “one Zambia one nation”. Develop an outward, forward looking, futuristic, pan Africanist agenda, rather than the narrow federalist perspective currently informing the strategies of our major political players.
6.Begin to walk the talk and restore morality honesty, decency and civility in public office.
7.Improve the lot of our mothers and sisters who daily suffer sexual abuse in their quest for employment, education and business opportunities.
8.Level the playing field in business, land acquisition and Tax incentives for Zambians. Give us the opportunity to do for ourselves what you the political Elites have failed to do for us over the past 40 plus years.
9.To our church leaders we say stop cashing in on Gods people, live what you preach and help our society restore
Godliness and morality to public life. Be men and women of God, not men and women of Gold.To our political leaders we say “keep the promise” and earn enduring respect and perhaps you will rule longer than your predecessors have done. To the Church leaders we say do this, then maybe we will once again begin to fill your churches and pay a little more attention to your sermons. Or else for the politicians “donchi kudabwa” if we turn on you like we turned on others a few months ago.
In 2011 We celebrated a new dawn under PF. We look forward to a strong, borderless peaceful Africa, from cape to cairo, that the hopes of Nkhuruma, the hopes of Kaunda, Lumumba, Mwalimu and Mandela will soon become the reality we live in, under the leadership of His Excellence MCS. Long live Zambia, Enduring in the long held hope of Africa’s ‘economic uhuru’.For and on behalf of the youth of Zambia-‘The Pan African Nationalist
[A political Essay by E.M. Katyoka]
